WWII Human Experimentation PT1: The Toxic Pseudoscience Of Eugenics The Poisoner's Almanac podcast

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WWII Human Experimentation PT1: The Toxic Pseudoscience of Eugenics

4d ago 1:11:14

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Hello Poison Friends! We are starting a series of sorts concerning the human experimentation that took place during WWII within the prison/concentrations camps of Nazi Germany and at Unit 731 in Japan. Before we jump into the details of these experiments, however, I think we need to go over the major philosophy that drove the atrocities of the Holocaust forward and allowed mankind to do such things to others.

Eugenics is now defined as a pseudoscience, but it had a big following in the late 1800s and early-mid 1900s, even among prominent scientists and politicians. There were Eugenics societies, publications, education centers, and even events like "Better Baby Contests." The term was coined by Charles Darwin's cousin, Francis Galton, who took "survival of the fittest," and "natural selection" to an extreme Charles himself did not approve of (or at least he did not encourage it). In his view, different races fit on a sort of hierarchal pyramid with white men sitting up at the top. He and other eugenicists like him, beleived this idea that humans and people groups can be perfected through genetics and trait inheritance. You can see where this is going, I am sure. Eugenics developed from such thinking further into such ideas as "racial hygiene" and defending against "race deterioration."

So, racism and the discrimination of those deemed unfit (physically or mentally disabled people, those with mental health disorders, those of a different race than caucasian, women labeled as promiscuous or hysterical or "feebleminded," etc.). Whole societies of racist white men were writing up propaganda against those they decided were "unfit." As a result, actual laws requiring the sterilization of those institutionalized were put into place, first in Indiana then another 29 states by the 1930s. This all sounds awful now, but it was becoming the popular opinion of the day, and not just in England and American. This ridiculous ideology spread from nation to nation. It was also prominent in Germany around the same time it was growing strong in America.

When Hitler rose to power, he created various kinds of prison camps for those deemed "unfit" in his and his followers' view. Jewish peoples, blacks living in the area, Romani peoples, disabled people or those unable to work, and Germans who disagreed with their ways. He and his followers sought to exterminate all of those deemed unworthy or unfit in their eyes. Knowing this, we can see how they thought experimenting on these groups of people was fine. In their minds, these were not "fit human beings" and they were doomed to die anyway. Millions of people were tortured, starved, experimented on and killed as a result of this ideology, and it was more prevalent in other nations like American than most know.

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